Ten commandments of interactive storytelling, Rules and cool stuff do not a story make Options

[Talia Invierno]

Say, for the sake of argument, two major types of Shadowrun games: those which are a series of non-connected runs or action wrt character personality and non self-improvement character goals; and those which shape runs or other Shadowrun action directly around the personalities and goals of the player characters. This attempt has more application to the second.


10. Thou shalt develop each of the three major parts of every story: plot, character, and atmosphere. Plot is what happens, character is who it happens to, and atmosphere is the environment within which it all happens.

9. Thou shalt create a flowing, logical plot with a hook for each of the characters involved, a reasonable way to follow the plot within the characters' own drives and goals, a gradual escalation of threat, and an ultimate encounter. (Ideally, a hook for the next story will be planted somewhere within the previous one, keeping the campaign flowing.)

8. Thou shalt develop the plot from the pov of the players as well as from the pov of the GM, keeping in mind their drives and goals. Thou shalt distinguish between the characters' short-term goals and long-term goals, and then thou shalt determine a way in which the characters might be able to accomplish some part of their goals after appropriate degree of effort. (This helps prevent railroading.)

7. In thinking about what is important to the character in order to determine plot hooks, thou shalt always consider that character's backstory. Thou wilt have developed any major characters in that backstory that are reasonably likely to have an effect on the current campaign.

6. Thou shalt never just give the characters what they want. What is not worked for is not valued.

5. Thou shalt avoid "action"/"fight" scenes that do not drive the plot or character development. (And yet there will occasionally be some "random" action: say about a 90%-10% split.)

4. Thou shalt always bear in mind that by themselves, cool toys do not a good story make. (Although they do have their place.)

3. Thou shalt never introduce new house rules or tables or plot convolutions just because they seem "neat" without first checking to see if they meet the other commandments of a good story.

2. Thou shalt structure the story within the rules.

1. Thou shalt never sacrifice the story to the rules.

[Shockwave_IIc]

[CoalHeart]

Talia Invierno is my hero.



I think I'll extract her genetic information and create hybrid clones with her cells as root stock. Then send my runners up against her... and then they die.

[Dashifen]

:notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

[lordsah]

The way I see it, rules have two purposes:

• To resolve situations you don't know or don't care to resolve yourself
• Provide consistency in the game world

The consistency is important because the players need to have a reasonable expectation for how their actions will play out. You can't live in a world where things happen arbitrarily. BUT don't let that get in the way when certain outcomes help your story along.

[Crusher Bob]

I'll add:

Thou shalt remember the suspension of disbelief and keep it wholly.

Thou shalt find out what the players want from the game, it is the players, not the characters. that the game is for.

Thou shalt ensure that thine utterances are understood by all.

[Dashifen]

[Talia Invierno]

:oops:

Consistency should definitely have made it onto that list somewhere. At least in gaming, the universe has to make sense.

[Crusher Bob]

There are two parts to the 'utterances' command

One is basically a 'descriptive' one, since you (as GM) describe the world, you must try to make sure that everyone 'sees' the same thing. not even perfect language use will save you every time since we can sometimes mis-hear or mis-read words. Usually this amounts to asking the player who seems to be taking a very 'reality contray' course of action whether they have the same mental representation of what is going on that you do.

The other involves the usually unsopken communication that occurs at the gaming table about things like what effects certain actions will have. (Sample: 'action move' vs realistic actions.)

[Firewall]

[simonw2000]

as for that, Firewall... :vegm: !

[Dashifen]

[kevyn668]

I thought that was all GREAT stuff. I'd print out and hang it in my office but I already had to explain the 50 Rules of Combat and The Wit of Shadowrun to my officemates...One girl asked me what it "...takes to do Shadowrun..."

I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't think she could handle it.


Sooooo, Talia, when do we get to see you in the Welcome the Shadows Forum?? After being a lurker (and sometime poster ;) ) on your "Infiltration Challenge" AKA "Breaking and Entering for Dummies", I'd send you a character background if you so much as hinted at doing a PbP run... :love:

[Eyeless Blond]

heh, amen to that. :) I'd submit my combat medic character if appripriate (gratuitous link). If not, I've got a good half-dozen characters I'm cooking up at the moment. I've got all kinds of character concepts built from or stolen out of my freeform RP experiences that I'm just dying to convert to SR. I also love working with systems, particularly stocastic or mathematic systems, and SR is just so much more fun for my inner math nerd than freeform ever was. :D

[Connor]

[kevyn668]

Will do. First thing tommorow. Unless someone beats me to it.

[Firewall]

[Talia Invierno]

Thanks, Dashifen. I was so not getting that!

Btw who or what is Anne Summers? (amazing in reverse)

I'm thinking a good deal more to "utterances" than the two you mention, Crusher Bob - especially concerning NPC dialogue - but those two would be the most important ones for mutual understanding by way of evoking a world which is consistent among the group's understanding. After all, it only really exists in the group's joint imagination.

The Infiltration Challenge was a how-to which grew - and grew - and grew. It was not something I had been expecting, and even with my best efforts I have sometimes had to skip a week and more before I was able to update. Never mind learning the quirks of yet another roleplaying medium, I simply can't commit to a PbP group thread with the current available time I have.

[Firewall]

Anne Summers is an 'adult' shop, selling underwear and 'bed-time' clothes. They also sell this thing called a 'rampant rabbit' apparently...

[Shockwave_IIc]

[Firewall]

Yeah, it is not the dark-windows-and-18-sign kind of shop but I mean it is not M&S either. I mean, you would not go buying kid's clothes in there. (well, except one man I knew but he went to prison for a while over it...)

[Talia Invierno]

[11?] Thou shalt not bring together a group to play in thy game until thou art willing and able to commit to regularly running a game.

(Yes, I'm still letting off steam.)

+ whatever rewordings of additions others wish to bring in? Apparently I'm going for the top twenty at this point.

[shadd4d]

[Phaeton]

...Well...Drek...Talia, you've asserted my position on an issue (or 12) with my GM. I thank and salute you. :notworthy:

I AM A CHANGED METAHUMAN!

[Phaeton]

[12] You shall not include story elements which personally offend the players. The PCs? Oh, easily. That's what RPing is about. But not the players.